With 20 studio albums under his belt and countless other songs that have never seen the light of day, Bruce Springsteen is one of the most prolific and popular musicians of his generation.
âThe Bossâ has sold 150 million albums and continues to be wildly successful, with his most recent release, 2020âs Letter To You, also hitting number one in the UK.
Springsteen has built a career on the power of storytelling, so here are three things you can learn about writing from the 20-time Grammy award-winner.
1. Write what you knowâŚ
You donât have to dip far into Springsteenâs back catalogue to find intensely personal songs. Much of his five-decade career has been spent chronicling his own stories, and that of the New Jersey folk he has known.
Indeed, writing about places and people from his experiences has been a feature of his music since the very beginning. Debut album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. is essentially an autobiographical work about his life growing up in the state, telling of the âgreasy lakeâ near his home on âSpirit In the Nightâ and his fatherâs employment in âDoes This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?â
Writing about what you know gives your work authenticity. Specific detail helps people relate to you, and it gives you a genuine and trusted voice as your audience instinctively understand that you know what youâre talking about.
There are countless examples of this in Springsteenâs work. One of the most famous lines from the brilliant â4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)â is:
âDid you hear, the cops finally busted Madam Marie,
for tellin’ fortunes better than they do…â
The “Madam Marie” mentioned in the song was a real-life fortune teller who worked on the Asbury Park Boardwalk. Marie Castello died in June 2008, aged 93.
âLast Man Standingâ â one of the best moments from his 2020 album Letter To You â tells the story of how Springsteen is now the last surviving member of The Castiles, the band he joined in 1965.
Of course, you could draw a map of New Jersey from landmarks mentioned in Springsteenâs lyrics. From âAtlantic Cityâ to âMy Hometownâ, many of his stories come from what he knows â even the Highway 9 from his most celebrated hit, âBorn To Runâ, namechecks the main stretch of road that ran through his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey.
If youâre struggling to come up with content, start writing about what you know.
âRacing In The Streetâ talks of a girl âwaiting tonight down in the parking lot/outside the Seven-Eleven store.â Detail is incredibly evocative (compare it to a simpler âwaiting in a parking lotâ) and immediately puts your audience in a place where they are creating images in their mind and engaging with your story.
Itâs not just your experiences your readers are interested in. They are also keen to hear your thoughts on topical matters.
Much of the 2001 album The Rising sees Springsteen process his feelings and thoughts on the devastating events of 9/11. âAmerican Skin (41 Shots)â considers the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. âRainmakerâ is a not-very-thinly veiled criticism of the presidency of Donald Trump.
Your audience wants you to put current matters into context, and to make sense of the world around them.
2. âŚbut put yourself in your audienceâs shoes
Two of the most successful recording artists of all time have built a career on telling the stories of the everyday American.
Springsteen is the hero of the blue-collar worker in the US, alongside his New York contemporary, Billy Joel, whose stories of steel mill workers (âAllentownâ) and Long Island fishermen (âThe Downeaster âAlexaââ) also shared the woes of hard-working people.
Finding heroism in the struggles of everyday folk has been one of Springsteenâs successes, as his songs chime with the audience on an intensely personal level.
Take this, from 1975âs âBadlandsâ:
âWorkin’ in the fields
That’ll get your back burned
Workin’ ‘neath the wheels
‘Til you get your facts learnedâ
Siding with the common American is a theme running through Springsteenâs output, and a lesson for every writer. Your audience will engage with you if you talk about their worries, concerns, and issues. What is bothering them? What are the challenges they face? What hope can you give them?
Perhaps the best example of this approach is in the title track of Springsteenâs first US number one album, The River. Itâs a song that resonates almost as much today as it did on its release 40 years ago.
âI got a job working construction
For the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain’t been much work
On account of the economyâ
Of course, it is possible to combine the two points here â writing about what you know and putting yourselves in the shoes of your audience. From 1984âs âMy Hometownâ:
âNow Main Streetâs whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ainât nobody wants to come down here no more
Theyâre closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ainât coming back
To your hometown.â
Now, itâs possible that youâve never experienced the issues your audience does. Perhaps the things that keep you awake at night are not the same as theirs.
This doesnât stop you being able to empathise, however. As Springsteen confessed in his stage show, Springsteen on Broadway, he made it all up. Heâs never raced cars or worked in a factory.
âIâve never held an honest job in my entire life!â he says. âIâve never done any hard labour. Iâve never worked 9 to 5. Iâve never worked five days a week. Until right now.
âI come from a boardwalk town that is tinged with just a little bit of fraud. So am I. Standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly successful writing about something about which he has had absolutely no personal experience. I made it all up!â
Understanding your audience, empathising with their problems, and demonstrating that you understand them and their concerns is a key part of engaging with people. Even though Springsteen acknowledges he is a âfraudâ, heâs still enjoyed a stellar career on the back of doing these three things.
3. Deadlines can help you produce your best work
In February 1984, Springsteen handed over the album tapes of what would become the epoch-defining album, Born In The USA, to his manager, Jon Landau. Having listened to the tapes, Landau told the singer that he didnât feel there was a strong enough âhit singleâ on the record and asked him to write another song.
As you might image, Springsteen was far from happy. He told Landau: âLook, Iâve written 70 songs. You want another one, you write it.â
Returning to his hotel room that evening with the words of his manager ringing in his ears, a dejected Springsteen set to work writing the âhitâ that Landau wanted. He took it to the Hit Factory studio the following day â 14 February 1984 â and, after six takes, âDancing In The Darkâ was recorded.
The irony of âDancing In The Darkâ is, of course, that it is a wildly successful song â Springsteenâs biggest hit â about the challenges of a writer being forced to write to a deadline. Lines such as âthis gunâs for hireâ and âyou canât start a fire without a sparkâ highlight Springsteenâs state of mind and the difficulty of having to find inspiration.
Everyone who has tried to write will have felt like this at one time or another:
âThey say you gotta stay hungry
Hey baby, I’m just about starvin’ tonight
I’m dyin’ for some action
I’m sick of sittin’ ’round here tryin’ to write this bookâ
The rest is history; the song won Springsteen his first Grammy award, and was a million-seller in the US. However, it wasnât the first time he had been forced to write to a deadline.
Clive Davis rejected his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. because he felt it didnât have a âhitâ, with the end result being the brilliant âBlinded By The Lightâ â a huge global hit for Manfred Mannâs Earth Band in 1976.
Sometimes, when youâre up against a deadline, being forced to write can focus the mind and help you produce some of your best work.
Interestingly, Springsteen turned to writing about what he knew for both these hits.
âDancing In The Darkâ is a highly personal song about his own mental health issues, and the challenge of feeling like a âgun for hireâ. âBlinded By The Lightâ is a story about Springsteenâs own adolescence, from the E-Street Bandâs âmadman drummerâ to his favourite teenage baseball team, âIndians in the summerâ.
So, if youâre up against a deadline, write about something you know, and put yourself in the shoes of your audience and think âWhat might interest them?â
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Here’s a Spotify playlist of all the songs referenced above.